


Two Different Takes on an Unfortunate Marriage (OR: Lydia deserved better than Wickham)

by limitless3409



Category: Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms, Pride and Prejudice (1995), Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Canon, F/M, I tried to show how manipulative Wickham can be, Implied past Wickham/Darcy, M/M, One Shot, and ofc lydia did nothing wrong, and present day Darcy/Lizzy, hidden scene from the book, just because i've always wondered how this went down, no one can tell me it's not canon, yes i am saying Darcy is bi and I stand by it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24400351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limitless3409/pseuds/limitless3409
Summary: Lydia is stuck in the slums of London when a man from her former life appears. The interaction between them is awkward at best. Meanwhile, Darcy feeling more conflicted about the arrangement than he lets on, especially after re-evaluating what happened to Georgiana.
Relationships: Lydia Bennet/George Wickham
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	Two Different Takes on an Unfortunate Marriage (OR: Lydia deserved better than Wickham)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone :) I don't usually write fanfiction (more of a reader, if you know what I mean) but I wrote this story in my English class and I thought it was good enough to share on here. Let me know what you think! I'd really appreciate everyone's feedback. Enjoy! :)

Lydia was consumed by boredom. She had never been this bored in her life. Every now and then, she would speak up, ask when could she leave and go to the opera, or a play, but then Wickham would shoot her down and she would feel as if the fifteen years that stretched between them were very large indeed.

  
Life for Lydia was not exactly what she expected when she decided to elope. Of course, the thrill of it still got to her sometimes, and made her giddy with laughter. But Wickham was just so somber, all of the time.

  
Her life, too, was monotonous in ways it had never been before. Everyday blended together, Wickham working with his numbers and books while Lydia tried not to implode. Somedays, she would look out the window, hypnotized by all the city folk going about their lives. “And to think that could be me!” she would sigh, looking over at Wickham.

  
“Darling, move away from the window,” was his crass response.

  
After one particularly long day Lydia was sat by the window trying to figure out how long it had really been since she’d eloped when she noticed an unusual sight for their side of London: a man, silhouetted in the lamplight, wielding both a top hat and a cane. Her eyes widened when she noticed his face. “Lord, what in the world is he doing here?”

* * *

Mr. Darcy had never planned to find himself interfering with one young girl’s entanglement with Wickham, let alone doing it twice. The similarities between his own sister Georgiana and Lydia’s situation were noticeable, if not striking: both impressionable, both unknowing of Wickham’s character, both but fifteen. Of course, Georgiana was still higher in his estimation—he liked to think that both her wit and her character was finer than the youngest Bennet sister. But the fact that his beloved sister could fall into Wickham’s trap made him far more amenable to Lydia’s gaffes.  
Thinking back on the events of the evening was painful, if not humiliating. Lydia, still dressed in her nightclothes, and Wickham, as outwardly amiable as ever, but both them and he equally embarrassed to have found each other in such a place.

  
Darcy did not want to know the particulars of the living situation, and thus, he did not ask, but he feared it unlikely that Lydia and Wickham had not at least slept in the same bed. This is my fault, his mirrored reflection seemed to whisper.

  
He did not often stay in London, and therefore rarely kept more than five servants at the house outside of the season, which made his sudden appearance rather unexpected, and he found his room rather unchanged from the last time he visited. After bathing off the filth of London, he found himself at his desk, looking for paper to begin a letter to Georgiana. Instead, to his surprise, he found an old, unopened letter from Georgiana that he had at some point stuffed into his desk unread. He wondered why; perhaps he had left it there to be read and forgotten about it. The paper was older, and crackled a bit as he opened the envelope. It read:

> My dearest brother,
> 
> I fear you are ashamed of my actions with Mr. Wickham, but I am writing to let you know that it is not possible that your shame could surpass my own. I am embarrassed for my actions, perhaps more than you will ever know. But I need you to understand why I did them.
> 
> First of all: I did not understand Wickham’s character or true intentions. I know we both have a history with him, but understand that my history with him differed from your own. To me, given his being many years my senior, he was always the man who I looked up to, who I thought of as handsome, and, to be frank, who I was spoony on. To find out that he held me in high esteem as well—I could hardly believe my luck. Truly, he is such an amiable man, one could talk to him for hours and not understand the unworthiness of his character.
> 
> Second of all: my chaperone at the time was too deceived by Wickham’s character. Even if I was not to trust my own judgement, she pushed me toward him at every mark, believing to be as good of a man as he pretends to be. I had thought of her as a woman I could trust, for you had selected her, and for this reason I believed her.
> 
> And finally: I thought you still held Wickham in high esteem. To be honest, I think part of the reason I was so infatuated with him was that even spending time with him made me think of you and Father and growing up at Pemberley. For a minute, I was transported back to the beauty of my youth, with Father still alive and you around all the time.
> 
> I know you are venturing into the country now, so I wish you luck, and am excited to be united again come winter.
> 
> Sending you all my love, your dearest sister,  
> Georgianna Darcy

“How could I have missed this?” Darcy asked, out loud but to himself. He was cross at himself all over again—for blaming Georgianna, for missing her letter, for having to force another girl into the same unfortunate institution he saved his own sister from. It seemed so cruelly unfair, to put Elizabeth in the same situation he had saved himself from. But what else was there to do, now that they had shared a wedding bed?

* * *

Lydia had been forced out of the negotiations between the two men, which suited her. She knew they had a history, and from what she could tell from standing outside Mr. Darcy’s office, things were not going well. Despite her knowledge of their past, their childhood together, she hadn’t quite realized what that meant, how well they knew each other, as if they could predict every action the other would make. There was a hate between them, but at the same time, an odd sort of love that came with growing up together. They had secrets between them, too: secrets Lydia could sense she would never quite be privy to. Lydia could hear these silent secrets in their voices through Mr. Darcy’s door.

  
Of course, Lydia knew that she was not supposed to be listening in, but she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t believe Kitty’s reaction—or better yet, Lizzie’s—when she told them about the odd series of events that led her to be sitting outside of Mr. Darcy’s office listening to him talk to her husband. Well, not quite her husband yet, but still, the very idea of it all made her want to laugh and laugh. For once, though, she held her tongue; Wickham, she could sense, would not be amiable to her inference with matters, and she didn’t want to anger him, not now.

  
Her thoughts shuttered to a halt, however, when she heard her own name mentioned. “Miss Lydia Bennett deserves a better man than you,” Mr. Darcy started. Lydia subconsciously corrected him to ‘the future Mrs. Wickham,’ which made her feel quite proud.

  
“But, to be fair, every young lady deserves a better man than you, for you are perhaps the lowest man in my estimation.” Mr. Darcy’s tone was biting, and his words unusual for a man of his position.

  
“You didn’t always feel that way, though.” Lydia could picture Wickham’s smirk through the door. “In fact, I believed there was a time when it was quite the opposite.” Wickham’s voice was cool and thick, as if he knew he had more to gain than Mr. Darcy did.

  
“Perhaps so, but believe me, that time is long gone. You go out of your way to become the most ignorant and obnoxious man I know. You have taken advantage of not one but two very young girls, and you have proved yourself time and time again to be devious and selfish. I can barely bring myself to have a conservation with a man so low as you, much less to marry such a young girl or save you financially. I thought you were finally finished with you last year, when I saved my sister from you. But you never were, and you never will be. You played with Miss Elizabeth Bennett’s emotions, with the emotions of Mary King, and finally with those of Miss Lydia Bennett, not to mention all of the other young ladies you have flirted with at some point or other.

  
“So I ask this of you; tell me how much you need, and I will give it to you, so long as you marry the girl and leave in peace.” Darcy’s voice sounded as if it physically hurt him to talk so.

  
Well, that’s silly, Lydia thought to herself. Why is Darcy forcing him to marry me? He was going to do so anyways.

  
Wickham’s voice snapped. “Why should I settle for anything less than $10,000, when you know who will be hurt if you don’t accept?”

  
“I will give you whatever you ask for as long as you marry the girl and leave in peace.”

  
Wickham opened the office door not a minute later, and was unhappily surprised to see Lydia right outside. “Come on, my darling. We must leave. We have a wedding to plan, afterall.”  
As Lydia walked out, she looked back to see Mr. Darcy’s eyes looked almost resigned as he watched the two go. She couldn’t help but laugh.


End file.
